Chapter 73

All of You, Out

Xu Chenzhu's words landed like a crack of thunder, leaving the Chen family speechless.

They were all people of standing. For Mr. Xu to say this, plainly, in front of everyone — it amounted to an announcement: however unreasonable Chao Musheng might be, he would back him regardless.

Chen You couldn't make sense of it. Even granting that Chao Musheng was a once-in-a-generation talent, Xu Chenzhu had no reason to go this far. Something was off in a way he couldn't quite locate.

He glanced at Grandfather's expression and decided not to say anything.

If Chao Musheng wanted to go up, let him go up. If he wanted to burn incense at midnight, let him burn it. Why make an enemy of President Xu over something this small?

"Mr. Xu — I have no intention of making things difficult. It's only that Mr. Chao's request..."

"Master Chen seems so reluctant. Is there something up there you'd rather we not see?" Chao Musheng still had hold of Xu Chenzhu's sleeve, and interjected with a theatrical mutter: "When we arrived you said we were welcome to go anywhere. Now we can't go here and we can't climb there."

The sleeve had developed wrinkles from the pulling. Neither the one doing the pulling nor the one being pulled seemed to find this unusual.

"Mr. Chao." Chen Yue spoke up suddenly. Her gaze swept across Master Chen and Chen You before settling on the wooden building. "You and Mr. Xu are the most honored guests at Chen Garden. You may go wherever you wish."

Chen You was astonished. This sister of his, who normally cared about nothing beyond dresses and handbags, had chosen this moment to open her mouth. He looked at her with no understanding of what she was trying to accomplish.

Chen Yue didn't acknowledge his expression. She simply reached out and took the keys from the steward's hand.

With Xu Chenzhu watching, the steward didn't dare snatch them back. He could only look at Master Chen and wait for instructions.

"Chen Yue." Master Chen stared at his suddenly disobedient granddaughter. "Your elders haven't spoken. You have no business opening your mouth here."

"Grandfather." Chen Yue took hold of his arm and looked up with guileless eyes. "I know you're only concerned for Mr. Chao's safety. Don't worry — I'll look after him properly."

Without waiting for Master Chen to respond, she ran for the building entrance.

"Chen Yue!" Master Chen's expression went dark. The way he looked at his granddaughter had shifted — no longer the look of a grandfather, but of someone watching an inconvenience.

Chen You had grown up close to his grandfather. He recognized that look immediately, and understood in the same moment: the building held something that could not be seen.

He stood frozen in place, staring at the darkness beyond the opening door. His mind surfaced with an image of his mother lying in bed, face pale, eyes closed.

Thud.

The floodlight came on. The whole building blazed with it — a bodyguard had opened the beam.

"Go ahead." Xu Chenzhu pressed down the piece of hair still sticking up from Chao Musheng's head. "I'll wait right here outside. Don't worry."

"Thank you, Mr. Xu." Chao Musheng released Xu Chenzhu's sleeve. The performance dropped from his face, and he went in at a stride.

"Stop—"

"Master Chen." Xu Chenzhu lowered his eyes and looked at Master Chen with a passing glance, no more than that. Not a word.

Master Chen felt his hands and feet go cold, the heat of a summer night notwithstanding. It was as though he had been dropped into freezing water.

He— he—

Only when Xu Chenzhu looked away did he lurch back a step, leaning on his walking stick and breathing hard.

"Cough — so much dust." Chao Musheng waved a hand in front of his face. "Your family's attitude toward your ancestors is remarkably careless. This building is filthy and nobody cleans it."

The ground floor had nothing of note — conventional screens and scrollwork. Chao Musheng looked it over and went upstairs.

Chen Yue glanced at Chen You, who had followed them in, with none of her usual warmth.

The second floor had two rooms. One appeared to be an ordinary bedroom. The other held the memorial tablets.

Three tablets, aligned precisely on a carved offering table. Chao Musheng checked the room thoroughly. No prayer mat. No incense burner. No offerings of any kind.

Chen You stood staring at the tablet on the right. Then, with the suddenness of a man who had lost his mind, he threw himself in front of it and tore at the iron chains with his bare hands, trying to break them loose.

The chains didn't move. His palms tore open and still the tablets didn't shift a fraction.

"Stop." Chen Yue didn't like Chen You at the best of times, but she couldn't watch this. "The tablets are cast iron. The chains are welded to them."

"Who did this to her?" Chen You's voice was raw.

Chen Yue looked at him without answering. Who in Chen Garden had the authority to do something like this, if not Grandfather?

Upstairs, Xiao He heard the shout from below. He had no way of knowing whether whoever was coming was organized backup or Chen family — he looked at the unconscious Chen Fang on the bed and slipped under it.

He found himself face to face with You Jiu, already wedged in the same space.

Both of them looked at each other in silence.

The door opened. They turned their eyes toward the entrance. From their angle, all they could see were feet.

"Second Brother!"

The first person to the bedside was wearing flat leather shoes. She moved as though she'd already known someone was there, without a second of hesitation.

Chen You hadn't recovered from the shock of the memorial tablet. Finding Chen Fang now in this strange bed, surrounded by strange symbols on every surface, he looked around blankly. "Why is he here?"

There was an odd smell. Blood, faintly — or some kind of incense.

"Jiangzhen incense." Chao Musheng looked toward the oddly-shaped censer in the corner. A partially burned stick of incense was set in it, already extinguished, the lid dusted with residual ash.

The bodyguards looked at him with puzzled expressions.

"Many practitioners of various traditions believe this incense opens a channel to divine communication," Chao Musheng explained. "My father brought some home once when he was researching religious literature."

Of course, no divine entity had communicated with his father.

"Mr. Chao." Chen Yue had half-dragged Chen Fang upright, struggling with his dead weight. "Would you help me get my brother to the hospital?"

"I didn't think you'd bother." Chao Musheng looked at Chen Fang, who had shown no response to any of this, and signaled the bodyguards behind him to help carry him.

"He's impulsive and sometimes says things without thinking." Chen Yue wiped the sweat from her face — her hand was dirty, and left smears on her cheek. "But when I was small and someone said I had no father, he chased the kid for three whole blocks. Without your help, I can't get him out of Chen Garden."

"Chen Yue — what do you mean by that?" Chen You looked up sharply.

"What do I mean?" Chen Yue looked at him with open contempt. "Second Brother was Grandfather's chosen offering."

"Offering?" Something flickered in Chen You's expression.

"You knew Grandfather had an altar set up in Chen Garden before. Don't pretend." Chen Yue's voice was flat. "This time the candidates were you and Second Brother. You're more useful to Grandfather, so the offering ended up being him."

With it said plainly, she didn't bother softening it: "Perhaps next time, when the need arises, the offering could be you."

"That's impossible. I'm Grandfather's eldest grandson." The reflex was immediate.

He didn't, notably, deny that Grandfather had chosen Chen Fang as the offering.

"On paper Grandfather has only you and Chen Fang as grandsons. But everyone knows there are others outside waiting to come in." Chen Yue looked around at the room. "This is the altar that Master Xuan and Grandfather built together."

"How do you know all this?" Chen You asked.

"Because the year my mother had her accident, I started watching everything that happened in this estate." Chen Yue had suspected at first that it was the work of one of her uncles. She hadn't expected the trail to end at her gentle, warm grandfather. "I thought at first it was one of the older generation. It wasn't."

She pointed under the bed. "There's a bronze mirror down there. It was originally one of Master Xuan's ritual instruments — I swapped it for a listening device."

Chen You immediately bent to look.

"Ah—!" He stumbled backward with a shout, scrambling to put himself behind the bodyguards.

Chen Yue pulled a candlestick from the altar, aimed the pointed end at the floor beneath the bed, and ordered: "Whatever is under there — come out, now."

Chao Musheng's expression went slightly strange. Please don't let that be Xiao He.

"Hi. Evening. Funny running into you." Xiao He crawled out from under the bed and dusted off his jacket. He looked at everyone in the room with the expression of a man who would very much like the ground to open beneath him.

"You're one of the household staff?" Chen Yue looked at him. "Why are you in here?"

"There's someone else." Chao Musheng crouched near the floor and looked under the bed.

You Jiu crawled out in silence.

"You're one of my grandfather's staff." Chen You recognized him and straightened up. "What are you doing here?"

The system was still silent, which meant there was still a window of opportunity—

Ding! Priority NPC identified as obstructing instance progression — eliminate Chao Musheng to exit the instance.

You Jiu gave a short, quiet laugh. He glanced at Chao Musheng, then put his hands in his pockets and didn't move.

The system never sent missions like this — sudden, directionless, crude. He wasn't foolish enough to treat this as an opportunity.

Priority NPC?

A character with no visible instance statistics, no status bar, no attributes — and yet clearly central to how this instance was moving?

In every instance he'd ever cleared, he'd never encountered anyone like Chao Musheng.

The system repeated its prompt. Again and again, insistent — and finally it began emitting a sharp, splitting shriek directly in his skull.

The system seemed to — hate this NPC?

Interesting. The system was an instrument created by the Main God, without emotion, without life. How could it hate an NPC in a world the Main God had created?

He pressed a hand over his skull, jaw tight, and said nothing.

"Are you all right?" Chao Musheng noticed You Jiu's face had gone suddenly pale and reached out to hold his arm. "I can have someone take you to a hospital."

"I'm fine. Just low blood sugar." You Jiu felt the warmth of Chao Musheng's hand through his sleeve. The system's shrieking in his head went silent.

"Mr. Chao — the second young master first." You Jiu had no explanation for his own presence here, but fortunately neither Chen You nor Chen Yue had much attention left for him, and Chao Musheng showed no signs of pressing the issue. He was grateful for the brief reprieve.

Chao Musheng turned and kicked over the ornate censer.

A bodyguard moved quickly, alarmed. "Mr. Chao — careful."

"It's just an incense burner." A short, cold exhale. "A person who uses his own blood kin as offerings — what god worth the name would ever answer him?"

He kicked it again. The censer rang out with each impact, denting inward.

"And as for whatever malevolent spirit might be involved —" Another kick. "The people of this country do not shelter idle gods or wicked ones. Get away from here. Don't come near any of this."

You Jiu stared at the crumpled censer. He didn't dare breathe too loudly.

After Chao Musheng left the room, You Jiu reached into his pack and took out a rare double-S item — a Forced Instance Exit card.

"I didn't think I'd ever use something this valuable on an instance like this." He flicked the edge of the card and used it without hesitating.

His instincts had told him: sooner spend the Forced Exit than lay a hand on Chao Musheng.

[WARNING — WARNING — EXTERNAL FORCE DETECTED. INSTANCE DESTABILIZING. INSTANCE COLLAPSE IMMINENT.]

"What's happening?" Tiger was in the trees outside the wooden building, watching the scene with considerable interest. He heard the notification and looked at Curly Hair. "What was that?"

"Nothing to worry about. The police are coming." Curly Hair looked at her phone — message sent — and smiled. "When a supernatural instance no longer contains any supernatural elements, and the people who did harm within it are brought to justice by law — the so-called instance can no longer sustain itself."

"What did you send?"

Tiger swallowed. Unless he was mistaken, that had been the online police tip-off platform.

"Some small pieces of evidence collected from the Chen family." Curly Hair watched the wooden building in the distance — Chao Musheng was already coming back downstairs with the bodyguards. "These past few days, because Xiao Chao gave me his trust, the household staff treated me well. That made it easier to find things."

The system was detestable, but using its exchange function to acquire recording equipment undetectable to ordinary people — that much was still workable.

"What do we do now?" Tiger listened to the countdown in his skull and felt anxiety edging into his voice.

Curly Hair put her phone away. "Time to go."

"We're not saying goodbye to Xiao Chao?" Tiger was reluctant. He didn't know if the next instance would ever bring him back to this world. Didn't know if he'd see Xiao Chao again.

"No." Curly Hair thought of the awkward accidental meetings across the last several instances, dragged a hand down her face, and held firm. She had suffered enough embarrassment.

*

"Mr. Chao — Chen Fang is my grandson. You are not taking him."

Master Chen, watching the bodyguards carry Chen Fang out, finally let the benevolent mask fall.

"Grandfather — it's not Mr. Chao taking Second Brother. I'm taking him to the hospital." Chen Yue stepped forward. "Mr. Chao is only helping."

"Chen Yue. You would defy me?"

"Grandfather — he's your grandson. Is there no part of you that doesn't want to let him go?"

"If you want to stay in Chen Garden with your mother, go back to your room." Master Chen was unmoved. "And Mr. Xu, Mr. Chao — my hospitality has been lacking. Please, see yourselves out."

"Mr. Xu — he's throwing us out." Chao Musheng caught Xu Chenzhu's arm, his palm suddenly burning. "I'm so frightened."

He hadn't quite stepped out of the villain role.

"What happens within Chen Garden is a private family matter." Master Chen had stopped calculating how much offense he could afford to give. "Outsiders have no place here."

"My apologies, Mr. Chen." An officer stepped forward, uniform crisp, badge catching the moonlight. "We have received a report of multiple criminal activities connected to the Chen family. Our department has secured substantial evidence. We ask that you cooperate fully with our investigation."

A stream of uniformed officers moved in.

Secretary Liu emerged from behind them, came to stand beside Chao Musheng, and smiled pleasantly at the assembled group.

"Good evening, everyone."

"You provided the evidence?" Master Chen looked at Secretary Liu and Chao Musheng standing together without a trace of tension between them, and understood in an instant.

"Master Chen, you flatter us — Xiao Chao and I were only fulfilling our civic responsibilities." Secretary Liu dropped a hand on Chao Musheng's shoulder. "Everything else — take it up with the officers."

Two days and nights without rest, tracing the threads of what the Chen family had done. Xiao Chao had investigated a great deal of it online. All of it to arrive at this moment.

Let's see anyone threaten his rice bowl again.

"Secretary Liu." Xu Chenzhu moved the hand from Chao Musheng's shoulder and took the place beside him himself.

He noticed color on Chao Musheng's face — touched his forehead.

His expression shifted immediately, composure gone.

"You have a fever!"

"What?" Chao Musheng put his own hand to his head.

It did feel warm.

He'd been fine just a moment ago. When had that happened?